Saturday, March 23, 2013

THE HIDDEN CHRONICLES OF OZ



Let us look at the new Oz series—THE HIDDEN CHRONICLES OF OZ.

The first book is now out (The Mysterious Tintype of Oz) and readers will already discover that the reason that Dorothy lost her parents back in Bowling Green, Kentucky, is likely to be a key to much that will be going on in the entire new series.

That is only one small way in which the new Oz series is far closer to Harry Potter than to Alice in Wonderland. Designed to appeal to older age groups, the world it shows is far more consistently depicted than in the Baum series.

Those who have only seen Oz-based movies and have never read the original book, should remember that Baum’s story was written in 1899, and was about a small orphan girl on a very poor farm, and she was younger than Judy Garland was in the film.

In the new series as in the original books, Dorothy was actually carried to the marvelous land of Oz by a tornado, and while there, she vanquished two cruel witches with the help of a scarecrow, a tin man, and a cowardly lion. And she returned home with the help of a pair of magical silver shoes (not ruby slippers).

Significantly, the first story in the new series, The Mysterious Tintype of Oz, tells where and how Dorothy Gayle became an orphan—later we even learn why—but you must read Tintype to begin unraveling the mysteries behind these facts.  Here is a bit of the prelude:



The Mysterious Tintype of Oz

Prelude: San Francisco, 1973

Eight-year-old Jeremy lay on the shag rug of the family-room, intent on the television set before him. 

A fanfare boomed, the film was over. He got up and turned off the TV.

He hurried over to his great-grandmother, who was sitting in a rocking chair nearby.

“Thanks for letting me see The Wizard of Oz again, Gran-gran. You’re my favorite babysitter. I won’t tell Mom an’ get you into trouble.”

The boy winked at her, then plopped down cross-legged on the floor before her. “Mom was afraid those flying monkeys would give me nightmares. But you know Ripley won’t let me have bad dreams anymore.”

He nodded toward a place next to him occupied by his imaginary friend.

“You told me before that you liked the Oz books better,” his great-grandmother said. “After seeing the movie again, do you still think that?”

“Oh, I love the movie, but, well, Oz is a real place in the books, an’ Dorothy keeps going back. So Ripley an’ I think it’s gotta be real. You agree with us, don’t you, Gran-gran?”

“Oh, yes, Oz is real all right. I should know.”

“Since it’s only Judy Garland’s dream in the movie, whizz-bang, that solves her Oz problems. But back in Kansas, poor Toto’s still in trouble with that horrid Gulch lady. Course, she wasn’t in the book—or those hired hands either.”

“Takes a great deal of imagination to think Oz could exist. You and I have very good imaginations, Jeremy.”

“More’n Mom. She gets real nervous if I say anything about Ripley.”
“I know, but remember others can’t see Ripley.”

“One time you promised to read me the stories you made up about Oz. An’ I know you lived in Kansas then, an’ your maiden name was Dorothy Gayle. Real cool coincidence—even if your last name was spelled wrong.”

“Spelled right for me.”

“Anyway, you sorta pretended to be the real Dorothy.”

“Yes. . . sort of pretended. . . . We had a tornado, you know. And I’ve kept journals for more than seventy years now. . . went back several times. Used my journals to rewrite my stories—over and over. Got help from Alex, your grandpa.”

“You said your stories are closer to the book than the movie.”

“Well, consider those ruby slippers in the movie. Now how could anyone do all that walking in slippers. Red wasn’t the right color either. Silver shoes, that’s what they were. It’s silver that’s magical in Oz.”

“My silly sister had nightmares just seeing the movie. So I imagine the real Dorothy might have had nightmares, too. An’ if she told the kids at school about Oz, she’d have been teased something awful. I learned to shut up about Ripley.”

“Your imagination is right on, young man. She had to learn how to deal with bullying and teasing.”



/////////////////

The Mysterious Tintype of Oz  ISBN  9781301449255 is available in various e-book formats.

For example it can be found at Barnes & and Noble at

A blog is at http://tintypeofoz.blogspot.com/

Tuesday, March 12, 2013

Harry Potter and the Wizard of Oz

Harry Potter and the Wizard of Oz


Many features of the Harry Potter series are similar to those of L. Frank Baum’s famous series that began with the Wonderful Wizard of Oz in 1900. 

Both begin with a pre-teen orphan living a very drab life.

Both show that child being raised by a humdrum aunt and uncle.

In both cases there exist two worlds in juxtaposition, one is magical, the other not.

Both series center on the orphan entering the alternative magical world, which is wondrously fascinating though concurrently filled with mortal danger. 

In that new world, perilous tasks are required of the child—things that the adults of that world seem unable to do. 

Both stories feature witches and wizards who may be either good or bad. 

Dorothy is accompanied by her black dog, Toto, while Harry Potter has his snowy owl, Hedwig. 

Both series feature forbidding forests, magical mirrors, and fighting trees with branches that hit and grasp.

Both series have animals that can speak and others that cannot.

The list goes on. . . 

MOST IMPORTANTLY—There are evil forces in both storylines (these take the form of persons highly adept in magic) and it is the child protagonist who is uniquely able to destroy them.

Major differences between the Baum and Rowling stories include the fact that Baum never explains how Dorothy was orphaned, while the way in which Harry lost his parents is key to the entire Harry Potter series.

The environment differs. Dorothy ranges over the countryside of a magical land, while much of the Potter series is set in a school for wizards and witches—a fantasy version of Tom Brown's School Days (1857) by Thomas Hughes.

Another major difference is that the Baum books were far looser in plot. They were more in the earlier fashion of Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland than in the style developed for such tales during the twentieth century. Furthermore, the later Oz books written by Baum do not show much consistency with his first one. They go on to contradict each other in respect to many of the most basic facts: how Oz was created, whether people die in Oz, whether money is used there, etc. Subsequent maps of Oz vary greatly, east even turns to west.

In sharp distinction, the fuller elaboration of plotting in the Harry Potter books was typical of most of the serial fantasy books of this type written during the twentieth century—series like those of J. R. R. Tolkien or C. S. Lewis.

There is little character development shown for Dorothy. Later books by Baum about Dorothy going back to Oz often ramble through a sequence of loosely related adventures. She visits a ‘King-of-This’ here, and then goes off to meet the ‘King-of-That’ there. The Wizard turns up again in a later book, but he seems a very different person than the one we first met.

Rowling’s stories feature character development. How Harry grows up is the very basis of her books. Hers books can be called a series of ‘coming of age’ stories—bildungsromans, some call the genre. Others around Harry develop as well, surely little Ginny, but also Hermione and Ron. We even see the villainous Draco Malfoy go through agonizing character change as the story develops.
............

Let us now look at the new Oz series—THE HIDDEN CHRONICLES OF OZ.

The first book is now out (The Mysterious Tintype of Oz) and readers will already discover that the reason that Dorothy lost her parents back in Bowling Green, Kentucky, is likely to be a key to much that will be going on in the entire new series.

That is only one small way in which the new Oz series is far closer to Harry Potter than to Alice in Wonderland. Designed to appeal to older age groups, the world it shows is far more consistently depicted than in the Baum series.

MOST IMPORTANTLY—While much of the story is laid in 1900, the style of the new Oz series is consistent with that of the twenty-first century fiction. Harry Potter fans will quickly realize that fact.

The first book of the new series, The Mysterious Tintype of Oz, may now be found in several e-book formats.

At Barnes & Noble :  http://bit.ly/16koVBu
 
A preview of the first chapters of Book Two in the series, Balloon to Oz, follow The Mysterious Tintype of Oz.






Sunday, March 10, 2013


NOTE to Judy Garland fans:

As stated earlier, nothing in ‘The Hidden Chronicles of Oz’ comes from any Oz-related book written by anyone other than L. Frank Baum.  Nothing comes from any of the stage plays or motion pictures based on Oz themes.

This means that ‘The Hidden Chronicles of Oz’ reflect nothing original to the famous motion picture staring Judy Garland (1922-1969). That 1939 film differed in very significant ways from Baum’s book—most especially by being set more than a generation later, and by making Oz turn out to be nothing but Judy Garland’s dream. 

Oz is a real place in the Baum books, and it is in The Mysterious Tintype of Oz and all of the books in ‘The Hidden Chronicles of Oz’.

The Judy Garland movie also featured hired hands on Uncle Henry’s farm, and a mean old lady making trouble in Kansas.  None of this was in Baum's book. Uncle Henry was dirt poor and couldn't have afforded employees. Part of the original story was left out in that film as well.

Those who have only seen Oz-based movies and have never read the original book, should remember that Baum’s story was written in 1899, and was about a small orphan girl on a very poor farm, and she was younger than Judy Garland was in the film. Our Dorothy, like Baum’s, was actually carried to the marvelous land of Oz by a tornado, and while there, she vanquished two cruel witches with the help of a scarecrow, a tin man, and a cowardly lion. And she returned home with the help of a pair of magical silver shoes (not ruby slippers).

Significantly, the first story in the new series, The Mysterious Tintype of Oz, tells where and how Dorothy Gayle became an orphan—later we even learn why—but you must read Tintype to begin unraveling the mysteries behind these facts.  Here is a bit of the prelude:

The Mysterious Tintype of Oz

Prelude: San Francisco, 1973

Eight-year-old Jeremy lay on the shag rug of the family-room, intent on the television set before him.
A fanfare boomed, the film was over. He got up and turned off the TV.
He hurried over to his great-grandmother, who was sitting in a rocking chair nearby.
“Thanks for letting me see The Wizard of Oz again, Gran-gran. You’re my favorite babysitter. I won’t tell Mom an’ get you into trouble.”
The boy winked at her, then plopped down cross-legged on the floor before her. “Mom was afraid those flying monkeys would give me nightmares. But you know Ripley won’t let me have bad dreams anymore.”
He nodded toward a place next to him occupied by his imaginary friend.
“You told me before that you liked the Oz books better,” his great-grandmother said. “After seeing the movie again, do you still think that?”
“Oh, I love the movie, but, well, Oz is a real place in the books, an’ Dorothy keeps going back. So Ripley an’ I think it’s gotta be real. You agree with us, don’t you, Gran-gran?”
“Oh, yes, Oz is real all right. I should know.”
“Since it’s only Judy Garland’s dream in the movie, whizz-bang, that solves her Oz problems. But back in Kansas, poor Toto’s still in trouble with that horrid Gulch lady. Course, she wasn’t in the book—or those hired hands either.”
“Takes a great deal of imagination to think Oz could exist. You and I have very good imaginations, Jeremy.”
“More’n Mom. She gets real nervous if I say anything about Ripley.”
“I know, but remember others can’t see Ripley.”
“One time you promised to read me the stories you made up about Oz. An’ I know you lived in Kansas then, an’ your maiden name was Dorothy Gayle. Real cool coincidence—even if your last name was spelled wrong.”
“Spelled right for me.”
“Anyway, you sorta pretended to be the real Dorothy.”
“Yes. . . sort of pretended. . . . We had a tornado, you know. And I’ve kept journals for more than seventy years now. . . went back several times. Used my journals to rewrite my stories—over and over. Got help from Alex, your grandpa.”
“You said your stories are closer to the book than the movie.”
“Well, consider those ruby slippers in the movie. Now how could anyone do all that walking in slippers. Red wasn’t the right color either. Silver shoes, that’s what they were. It’s silver that’s magical in Oz.”
“My silly sister had nightmares just seeing the movie. So I imagine the real Dorothy might have had nightmares, too. An’ if she told the kids at school about Oz, she’d have been teased something awful. I learned to shut up about Ripley.”
“Your imagination is right on, young man. She had to learn how to deal with bullying and teasing.”
/////////////////

The Mysterious Tintype of Oz  ISBN  9781301449255 is available in various e-book formats.

For example it can be found at Barnes & and Noble at

A blog is at http://tintypeofoz.blogspot.com/




Sources for The Hidden Chronicles of Oz

THE HIDDEN CHRONICLES OF OZ is a new Oz series covering the further adventures of Dorothy, an orphan living with her aunt and uncle on a remote Kansas farm in 1900—and famous from the book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by Lyman Frank Baum (1856-1919), a book published in 1900.

The books of ‘The Hidden Chronicles of Oz’ are in sequel to that book, and to that book alone.

The series retains the spirit of Baum’s imagination and the fantasy land revealed in his first Oz book. To do so, the books draw lines of action and even dialog from other books by Mr. Baum. For example, the  first book of the new series, The Mysterious Tintype of Oz, derives much from Baum’s second Oz story, The Marvelous Land of Oz, a book without Dorothy, published in 1904. A few other features and dialogue in Tintype have been purposefully extracted from Baum's later books, for example The Road to Oz (1909). 

The books of ‘The Hidden Chronicles of Oz’ do not attempt to be consistent with all the later Oz books by Baum. That would actually be impossible. Those books contradict each other in respect to many of the most basic facts about Oz. Even the maps vary greatly. (Below we will show our proper map.)

Most importantly, Tintype leads the reader into a new and larger story about Oz and a mysterious and magic-ridden world of planetary dimensions called Erdavon, of which Oz is only a part.  This Erdavon might today be called an 'alternative Earth,’ a place that exists in some as yet undiscovered ‘alternative dimension.’

Erdavon is shown as tied to our world (Alpimar) primarily by high atmosphere, winds, flight by balloon, etc. It is not gotten to by such means as plunging through a train station wall to ‘Platform 9 3/4’ in order to board the Hogwarts Express. (Mysterious portals to Erdavon may have existed in the past, but that’s another story.)

Later books by Baum about Dorothy in Oz often ramble through a sequence of loosely related adventures. She visits a ‘King-of-This,’ here and then a ‘King-of-That’ there. Thus they were more in the earlier fashion of Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland than in the style developed by twentieth century series like those of J. R. R. Tolkien or C. S. Lewis.

There was little or no character development—personal growth—shown in Baum’s Oz series. Such is an important feature of most of the more recent fantasy series involving young protagonists like Harry Potter.

Yet the Oz books have been beloved over the years. Toto, Tin-man, Scarecrow, Lion, and even that humbug of a Wizard are all iconic characters around the world. None is transmogrified in this series. Nor is Dorothy, though she does grow older and finds boys more interesting—and frustrating.

Thus the series ‘The Hidden Chronicles of Oz’ remains quite consistent with Baum’s first book. Nothing in it comes from any of the Oz books that were later written by other persons. Nothing is derived from any of the many stage plays, motion pictures, or television shows that have appeared using Oz theme.
 
The Land of Oz is but a small part of an entire alternative world where magic reigns—not science and technology. This world is called Erdavon, and it mirrors our world in many ways but differs sharply in others. Oz is cut off from other lands of Erdavon by deadly deserts and an impassable sea. These barriers, called haltracs, are ancient. 

The map below will show how that the Oz of this series follows that of Baum’s first Oz book, but it will reveal some new dimensions as well. The lake shown within Emraldian territory is, by the way, named Lake Mystikin.